


In Doctor Dolittle's Kitchen

by Katherine



Category: Doctor Dolittle - Hugh Lofting
Genre: Gen, Set in The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 13:48:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7441576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katherine/pseuds/Katherine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The duck, Dab-Dab, returned from looking out into the garden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Doctor Dolittle's Kitchen

The duck, Dab-Dab, returned from looking out into the garden. She extended her wings a little ways from her sides, ruffling the feathers. This I was learning to interpret as having a meaning very like a sigh. "It's just as well I hadn't startled the omelettes," she said, and with her beak pushed the frying pan back. More confident so far when understanding birds than when speaking to them, I carefully asked, "Shall I hang the pan back up?"

"Thank you, Stubbins," Dab-Dab answered, and I hung the frying pan in its place on the kitchen wall. Tea would have to wait. Doctor Dolittle was out in the garden, treating a snake that was too shy to enter a house. No matter that this was the house of the great Doctor Dolittle, the only animal doctor who could understand and talk to animals.

"He does try visiting hours," Dab-Dab told me. "But there's always some animal needing him urgently, or thinking they do. He gets again to answering at any time of the day and night. Then there go regular meals again." She was unhappy, precise housekeeper that she was, and as fond of the Doctor as were all his pets.

As I attempted to help with the tea, or rather the delaying of it, Dab-Dab said, "You have a good hand with the fry bread." Then she ruffled her wings again, "He says he likes a cold tea as much as a hot one, but..."

Gub-Gub the pig poked his snout in, probably attracted by the smell of food. Dab-Dab went up on her webbed toes to glare at him. I couldn't yet understand what he said but he backed out. Polynesia had started me with bird languages and I was making good progress in dog language. Perhaps I should begin pig talk as the next one. It seemed only polite to learn to understand Gub-Gub since I was joining the household he was already part of.

I would keep doing my best to be a proper assistant to John Dolittle, M.D. If today that meant helping a duck with the tea things, well, that was important to keeping the house running smoothly. Besides, I could ask Dab-Dab to help me with that tricky bit of goose grammar as we worked.


End file.
